Quote

It costs me never a stab nor squirm / To tread by chance upon a worm. / Aha, my little dear, / I say, Your clan will pay me back one day.

Dorothy Parker

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Dorothy Parker
Age: 73 †
Born: 1893
Born: August 22
Died: 1967
Died: June 7
Columnist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
Writer
West End
Monmouth County
New Jersey
Dorothy Rothschild
Dot Rothschild
Dottie Rothschild
Death
Worm
Littles
Worms
Back
Costs
Little
Dear
Squirm
Never
Cost
Clan
Pay
Clans
Chance
Stab
Upon
Tread

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A liberal is a man who leaves the room before the fight starts.
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Where unwilling dies the rose buds the new another year.
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If I don't drive around the park, I'm pretty sure to make my mark. If I'm in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again. If I abstain from fun and such, I'll probably amount to much But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn.
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I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.
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The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters. The boys have gone hog-wild with liberty, yet the short flat terms used over and over, both in dialogue and narrative, add neither vigor nor clarity the effect is not of shock but of something far more dangerous — tedium.
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That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.
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Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
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Daily dawns another day I must up, to make my way. Though I dress and drink and eat, Move my fingers and my feet, Learn a little, here and there, Weep and laugh and sweat and swear, Hear a song, or watch a stage, Leave some words upon a page, Claim a foe, or hail a friend- Bed awaits me at the end.
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[On being shown an apartment by a real estate agent:] Oh, dear, that's much too big. All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.
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Eternity is a ham and two people.
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The Swiss are a neat and an industrious people, none of whom is under seventy-five years of age.
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All I have to be thankful for in this world is that I was sitting down when my garter busted.
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How do people go to sleep? I'm afraid I've lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the night-light. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound if I can remember any of the damn things.
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What writes worse than a Theodore Dreiser? ... Two Theodore Dreisers.
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I wouldn't touch a superlative again with an umbrella.
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If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you.
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My own dear love, he is strong and bold And he cares not what comes after. His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, And his eyes are lit with laughter. He is jubilant as a flag unfurled - Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. My own dear love, he is all my world - And I wish I'd never met him.
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On being told of the death of former President Calvin Coolidge: How could they tell?
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[On Lou Tellegen's Women Have Been Kind:] The book ... has all the elegance of a quirked little finger and all the glitter of a pair of new rubbers.
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Nevil Shute's On the Beach is no Christmas carol, but it seems to me a remarkably fine novel, one which I read, in the peculiarly repulsive phrase, with my eyes glued to the page.
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